the Extended Medical
Degree Programme (EMDP)
at King’s have graduated,
receiving a personal message of
congratulations from the Prime
Minister. The EMDP is the
UK’s first widening participation
medical degree course and is
aimed at pupils from low achieving
schools in London who have
the ability and desire to become
doctors.

‘Worked so hard to
realise their dream’
Stella Adesoye, Anya
Omunnakwe and Linda Onyema
were awarded their degrees at
Southwark Cathedral on 29 June.
‘For as long as I can remember my
aspiration has been to work as a
doctor. Graduating is a huge relief
because medicine has been a lot
of hard work, but it is definitely
worth it!’ comments Linda.
The Prime Minister, Gordon
Brown, praised the students’
achievements: ‘I had the pleasure
of meeting Dr Pamela Garlick
and students from the Extended
Medical Degree Programme when
I visited King’s last year. There
are nearly 200 students in the
programme training to become
doctors. Many had to overcome
significant obstacles to get there.
Congratulations and good luck to
everyone on the course and all who
are graduating today.’
Archbishop Desmond

From left: Dr Stella Adesoye, Dr Linda Onyema and Dr Anya Omunnakwe – the first students to graduate from the Extended Medical Degree
Programme.

Tutu, Fellow and Visiting
Professor at King’s, also offered
congratulations: ‘King’s has one of
the finest Medical Schools in the
world and to graduate in medicine

from there is no mean feat for
anyone, so I am particularly proud
of those of you who have worked
so hard to realise your dream.’
The six-year EMDP started

at King’s in 2001 and now takes
50 additional students, funded
by HEFCE, into the School of
Medicine every year. The students
continued on page 2

News

First WP doctors
continued from page 1

do not have the A-level grades and
extracurricular achievements to
secure a place on a conventional
medical course but they have
the right attitude and academic
potential to make excellent
doctors. Most of the students
have no family history of higher
education and many come from
socially, as well as academically,
disadvantaged backgrounds.

‘Some are in the top 15
per cent of their year’
EMDP course director Dr
Pamela Garlick explains that
the EMDP students perform
extremely well on the course:
‘These students now make up over
10 per cent of the medical student
population at King’s and the best
of them are consistently in the top
15 per cent of their whole year
group in examination results.’
Sir Graeme Catto, President of
the General Medical Council and
former Vice-Principal of King’s,
adds: ‘It is crucial that doctors
become much more representative
of the populations they treat and the
extended degree at King’s is a major
step forward in achieving this.’
The graduating students also
attended a College lunch with
Vice-Principal (Arts & Sciences)
Professor Keith Hoggart, Dr
Pamela Garlick, Access to
Medicine outreach manager Dr

Principal’s Column

Gavin Brown, Head of Anatomy
Professor Susan Standring and
Drs Graeme Clayden and Barbara
Moreland who teach the EMDP
students. They were joined by
Sir Cyril Chantler, Chairman of
the Trust Board of Great Ormond
Street Hospital and former Dean of
the Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’
Medical Schools. Sir Cyril and
Professor Standring originated the
idea of the EMDP at King’s.
Professor Rick Trainor,
Principal, offers his congratulations
to the graduating students: ‘We
wish them the best of luck in
their chosen area of medicine.
King’s is committed to widening
participation. As well as the
EMDP and Access to Medicine
outreach projects, we are involved
in a wide range of initiatives
aimed at encouraging students
who otherwise might not consider
higher education as an option.’
EMDP students:
• are recruited from nonselective state schools or sixth
form colleges in deprived inner
London boroughs
• take six years rather than five
to complete their degree with
extra support in the first three
years
• are required to sit the same
examinations and achieve the
same pass marks
• get involved in the wider
Access to Medicine scheme,
working with local schools to
raise pupils’ career aspirations
Greg Funnell

Dear Colleagues
As you read this we will be
entering a new financial year
and I am pleased to report
that the College’s finances are
in a healthy state. We have
spent over £500 million on our
estate over the last decade and
more than £10 million over the
last two years alone on new
academic posts. Nevertheless
there is still much to be done
and we intend to incur a planned
deficit of £1 million this year in
order to invest in areas that we
have prioritised, in particular
IT. It is important to emphasise
that all our investments are to
allow academics and students to
flourish and excel in their core
activities, and an improved
IT infrastructure is a vital
part of this. Other high priorities
in the strategic plan, especially
those connected with
generating increased income,
will be pursued as soon as
resources allow.
A number of reforms are
planned for the coming year.
Of major importance is the
introduction of a ‘standardised
platform’ central admissions
process. This will, however,
continue to be driven by
Department-level academic
judgement. Universities have
dramatically different admissions
procedures, but by any standards
King’s sometimes responds to
applicants much slower than
other institutions, and this must
be improved.
We also plan to introduce a
major reform of our governance.
This will involve a large-scale
reduction in the number
of committees reporting to
Academic Board: the guiding

principle of these changes is
to make clearer the distinction
between management and
governance. Two major new
committees are planned which
will cover issues relating
to students, and research.
Systematic dialogue with
individuals across the College
will continue through
consultative fora and, needless
to say, any matter relating to
the academic life of the College
may still be raised by staff at
Academic Board.
An issue that has been
discussed recently at the Board
and at virtually every senior
committee of the College is
that of our citation policy. It
is important that published
academic papers credit the
College correctly as King’s
College London as the first
element of an author’s affiliation.
This is important not only to
ensure that King’s is correctly
positioned in university league
tables, but soon funding council
research money is likely to
be allocated increasingly on
bibliometric measures. While the
College’s record has improved
somewhat during the past two
years King’s still underperforms
significantly in this area (and has
even been alleged to be worst
in Europe in getting appropriate
credit through citations) due to
papers being credited wrongly.
47 per cent of papers from one
School were wrongly credited
in 2005-6; there is clearly much
room for improvement.
On another note, I would like
to reiterate my opposition to the
proposed boycott by UCU of
Israeli academics. My opposition
is shared by the UK Board of
Universities UK and every other
Vice-Chancellor in the Russell
Group as being a grave threat
to the principles of academic
freedom. I am not aware of
strong feelings within the
College to support the proposal
and I certainly hope that it is
defeated.
With best wishes for the
summer.
Rick Trainor

News

Henry III’s ‘fine’ records online
Greg Funnell

A unique project ‘digitalising’

the ‘Fine Rolls’ of Henry III
was launched on 22 May at the
Maughan Library. The Library
was the former Public Record
Office building where the rolls
were housed for over a century
before their move in the 1990s to
the new home of The National
Archives at Kew.

Freely available online
in English
This fascinating and unique
resource, hitherto largely
inaccessible and unusable is now
freely available online in English.
Henry III ruled from 1216-72,
and during his reign a Fine Roll
for each of his 56 years was drawn
up. These contain written details
about offers of money to the king
for a whole variety of concessions
and favours, as well as a great deal
of other material.
Written in Latin on parchment
and containing up to 35,000
words, the Fine Rolls measure
up to 30 feet in length. A fine is
essentially an agreement to pay
money for a concession. The first
entry is about the release of a rebel
from prison during the 1215-17
civil war.
This pioneering project – in
the 800th anniversary of the birth
of Henry III (1207) – is led by
David Carpenter, Professor of
Medieval History. Working with
the College’s internationally
renowned Centre for Computing
in the Humanities, the Fine Rolls
from 1216-48 have been published
online, translated into English and
an electronic index created.
Professor Carpenter comments:
‘This major new resource will
transform the understanding
of politics, government and
society in a reign that saw the
implementation of the Magna
Carta into English political
life and the beginnings of the
parliamentary state.
‘The rolls are vital for the study
of royal patronage, the position
of women, urban privileges, the
changing nature of the gentry,

Professor David Carpenter discusses the Fine Rolls with Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Terry Jones has written books and presented
television documentaries on medieval and ancient history and attended the launch of the digitisation of the Fine Rolls.

Drawing of a woman’s head, probably
Mirabel, widow of Elias the Jew, from
Gloucester as it appears next to a record
stating that she paid 15 marks (£10) for
custody of her late husband’s houses in
that city.

the development of the
common law and the
commercialisation of
the economy. Family
historians who make
up 65 per cent of the
users of The National
Archives, will find them
teaming with relevant
information.’
The project does
not neglect the rolls
themselves and their
digitalised images appear
on the website and it is possible

to look through them membrane
by membrane and zoom in on a
particular entry. The historical
interest of the material is revealed
in a ‘fine of the month’ feature
where every month there is
comment on material of particular
significance in the rolls.
The project is a three-year
enterprise in conjunction with The
National Archives
at Kew and
funded
by
the

Arts & Humanities Research
Council. The current project
covers the rolls from 1216-48, and
it is hoped further funding will be
secured to carry the work on to the
end of the reign in 1272.

Fascinating and unique
resource
The Fine Rolls will also
be available in a print
version. Previously the
Fine Rolls had only
been available in
print form in two
obscure volumes
of Latin which
appeared in
1835-6 and
were only 15
per cent of the
whole.
Visit www.
finerollshenry3.org.uk

to see Henry III’s Fine
Rolls online.
The first great seal of Henry III, which is
attached to documents granting the moor of
Alfietmore to Stanley Abbey in exchange for
the surrender of land and the right to take
wood in Chippenham Forest, Wiltshire.

July 2007 | Comment |

News

Science Minister visits King’s
The Minister of State for Science

and Innovation, Malcolm Wicks
MP, visited King’s on 24 May for
a briefing on some of the College’s
major biomedical research and
commercialisation initiatives.
The Minister was welcomed to
Guy’s Campus by the Principal,
Professor Rick Trainor, Professor
Sir Lawrence Freedman, VicePrincipal (Research), Professor
Robert Lechler, Vice-Principal
(Health), Professor Simon Howell,
Dean of Guy’s Campus and Dr
Alison Campbell, Director of
King’s Business.
He was briefed about the
College’s research strategy,
in particular in the area of
biomedicine. This included
King’s academic partnership in
all three categories of Biomedical
Research Centre co-ordinated by
the Department of Health and the
recent award of King’s fifth MRC

Centre (Transplantation). King’s
involvement in the government’s
Global Medical Excellence Cluster
was also discussed.
The party visited the Wolfson
Centre for Age-Related Diseases,
where Professor Clive Ballard
talked about his group’s research
on dementia.
Professor Peter Jenner, Founder
and Chief Scientific Officer of
Proximagen, the College’s most
successful spin-out company, then
gave a presentation. Proximagen
aims to develop novel therapies
for relieving severe symptoms of
neurodegenerative disease.
The tour then moved to the
Henry Wellcome laboratories for
Medical and Molecular Genetics,
headed by Professor Ellen
Solomon. The visit culminated
in a presentation by Dr Alison
Campbell about knowledge
transfer and the College’s

NHS IT project reviewed

Greg Funnell

Malcolm Wicks MP watches PhD student Eva Sirinathsinghji at work during his tour of the
genetics laboratories on his visit to King’s.

commercialisation activities and
business partnerships.
The Minister ended by talking
about research funding and the
government’s commitment to

scientific innovation.
Malcolm Wicks now has a new
role as Minister for Energy in the
new Department for Business
Enterprise and Legislatory Reform.

HEIST Award for King’s
EP

A study of the progress of the NHS

IT programme found that financial
deficits and poor communication
continue to hamper its successful
implementation. The researchers,
including King’s Professor Naomi
Fulop, also report that delays could
constitute a growing risk to patient
safety. The study was published
online on 17 May in the BMJ.

‘A real risk that
patient care could be
compromised’
In this follow-up to their
initial study published in 2005,
researchers from King’s, Imperial
College London, the University
of Bristol and London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
interviewed a range of key senior
NHS staff in financial, IT and
clinical roles.
Respondents felt that local
financial deficits are having a
serious impact on the success
of the programme. As financial
problems continue to worsen
| Comment | July 2007

local managers can’t focus on
implementing the system because
of competing financial priorities
and uncertainties about the
programme.
With the announcement of the
new IT programme in 2002, many
NHS Trusts stopped investing in
their existing systems. This study
highlights how delays now mean
that existing technology may not
be fit for purpose and some staff
feel this represents an unacceptable
risk to patient safety.
Naomi Fulop, Professor
of Health and Health Policy,
Department of Management,
comments: ‘We have found that
NHS staff support the goals of
this programme and believe in
the benefits of IT modernisation.
But they have a number of serious
concerns, in particular potential
risks to patient safety. It’s crucial
that patient information is stored
and accessed via a robust, secure
IT system. While the delays
continue, IT networks are
becoming outdated and there is
a real risk that patient care could
be compromised.’

King’s Graduate Prospectus 2007 won top prize at one of higher education’s most
prestigious award events, held at Old Trafford on 3 May. At the 17th Annual Heist
Awards the College’s Graduate Prospectus won the Gold award. It was presented
to Olivia Davenport (second from right), Marketing Production & Communications
Manager, and Christine Ayre (second from left), Corporate Identity Manager, by TV
newsreader Fiona Bruce. The citation for the prospectus said that it was ‘A clear
winner with the judges’, and that they were impressed by the clean layout and use
of text as it was considered, thorough, in depth and appealed to students. ‘This
prospectus fulfilled the panel’s expectations regarding this prestigious College.’

Professor Fulop also gave
evidence on 7 June to the
House of Commons’ Health
Select Committee about the IT
programme. The Committee
recently launched a new inquiry
into the Electronic Patient Record,
exploring issues such as what

patient information will be held
on the system, who will have
access to it and whether patient
confidentiality can be adequately
protected. Professor Fulop was
asked about progress of the new
IT system and why its delivery
is up to two years behind schedule.

News

Biomedical Forum launched
On 22 June the National Institute

for Health Research (NIHR)
Comprehensive Biomedical
Research Centre (BRC) at King’s
and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust launched its
Biomedical Forum to showcase
translational research and foster
collaboration between scientists,
clinicians, dentists and allied
health professionals. The inaugural
event brought together key figures
from the BRC and culminated
in a lecture by a leading
international scientist.
The inaugural speaker was
Professor Larry Turka, a leading
nephrologist from the University
of Pennsylvania, who is also a
member of the Centre’s External
Scientific Advisory Board. His
lecture, Transplantation tolerance
– moving the bench to the bedside,
was introduced by Professor
Graham Lord, Deputy Director
of the BRC. In his lecture, which
was well attended by staff from
across the College and the Trust,
Professor Turka talked about the
basic scientific work being done

in his lab that is being translated
into advances in the treatment
of patients undergoing kidney
transplantation.
In December 2006 King’s
was successful in a joint bid
with its partner NHS Trust
and was awarded one of five
Comprehensive NIHR Centres.
The aim of this Department
of Health initiative was to find
leaders in scientific translation
in order to accelerate new
treatment and technologies
for improving health and to
boost the nation’s international
competitiveness in this area.
King’s is the only university
to provide academic partnership
in all three categories of research
centre (Comprehensive, Specialist
and Patient Safety and Service
Quality).
The Biomedical Forum
is a unique feature of the
Comprehensive Centre, bringing
together, every two weeks, senior
investigators across disciplines,
educators and representation from
industry to constantly review

opportunities for translation. The
Forum will have specific relevance
to the Centre’s scientific themes
and will also provide critical
mentorship and training for the
scientists and clinicians working in
the Centre. (See Comment 172).
Professor Graham Lord, who
is also Director of Translational
Research Development, said: ‘The

opportunity to perform worldclass translational research for
the benefit of patients has never
been greater. The Centre and
key features like the new Forum,
which will enable a regular sharing
of ideas and strategies nationally
and internationally, put us in an
excellent position to respond to
this challenge.’

Chief Rabbi lectures at King’s
naresh verlander

More than 200,000 elderly people

are being abused in their own
homes, the first ever UK study of
elder abuse published on 14 June
reveals. Researchers from King’s
Institute of Gerontology and
Social Care Workforce Research
Unit, together with The National
Centre for Social Research, carried
out the study.
Their findings show significant
numbers of older people at risk.
An overall 2.6 per cent of older
people, equating to about 227,000
people aged 66 and over, living
in private households (including
sheltered housing) reported to have
experienced mistreatment from
a relative, friend or professional
carer. This figure indicates that
one out of every 40 older people
visiting their GPs may be a victim.
When mistreatment was
broadened to include neighbours
and acquaintances, the overall
prevalence increased from

2.6 per cent to 4 per cent:
a figure of approximately
342,400 older people subject
to abuse or neglect.
Mistreatment is broken down
into neglect, financial abuse,
psychological and physical abuse
and sexual abuse.
Professor Simon Biggs, Director
of the Institute of Gerontology,
comments: ‘This study is
important because, for the first
time, it provides reliable estimates
for the extent of abuse and neglect
among older people who live in
their own homes. It therefore
significantly widens the evidence
base for future policy making.
‘Once wider groups are added,
the figure rises to 4 per cent and
draws attention to the possibility
of “social” forms of abuse beyond
the areas of family and caring that
have traditionally been looked at.’
For further information contact
Sue Johnson (info@natcen.ac.uk).

The Chief Rabbi, and Visiting Professor and Fellow of King’s, Sir Jonathan Sacks,
gave a major lecture entitled Religious Education for a Society of Diversity in the
Great Hall on 12 June. This was the Department of Education & Professional
Studies annual lecture. Widely recognised as one of the world’s leading
contemporary exponents of Judaism, Jonathan Sacks became Chief Rabbi of the
United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth in 1991 and was knighted in
2005. He was made a Fellow of the College in 1993.

July 2007 | Comment |

News

New Statistical Genetics Unit
A new Statistical Genetics Unit has

been launched bringing together
researchers in the MRC Social,
Genetic and Developmental
Psychiatry Centre (SGDP),
Institute of Psychiatry and the
Department of Medical and
Molecular Genetics (MMG),
School of Medicine.
The Unit, to be led by Professor
Cathryn Lewis, forms a critical
mass of researchers in this
expanding multi-disciplinary
field, and will be consolidated
by two new academic posts. The
Unit will develop novel statistical
methodology for genetic studies,
and collaborate closely with
molecular and clinical colleagues
on research projects to localise

genes that contribute to human
diseases and behavioural traits.
‘I am excited about our new
Statistical Genetics Unit because
it brings together the expertise in
the MMG and SGDP under the
leadership of Cathryn Lewis and
augmented substantially with two
new academic appointments that
increase the breadth and depth of
expertise,’ said Professor Robert
Plomin, SGDP Centre Director.
‘The statistical genetic issues
involved in localising genes for
common disorders and complex
traits are very similar for medicine
and psychiatry so it makes sense
to merge our strengths in statistical
genetics to create a world-class
group at the cutting edge of the

Professor Cathryn Lewis will lead the new
Statistical Genetics Unit.

statistical genetics field.’
This initiative strengthens
the link between the School

of Medicine and Institute of
Psychiatry, and will provide a
rich resource for state-of-the-art
statistical genetic research and
for training much needed future
researchers in this field.
‘This development has allowed
us to create a critical mass of
excellent researchers at a time when
these skills and interests are essential
to deal with the data coming from
the whole genome association
studies, recently the subject of
much publicity. We are very pleased
to be at the forefront of some of
these studies and will now be able
to keep well ahead of the field,’
added Professor Ellen Solomon,
Head of the Department of Medical
and Molecular Genetics.

Making movies of molecules
A team of international scientists,

including Alessandro De Vita of
the Department of Physics, has
made ‘movies’ to provide the first
direct evidence of how individual
molecules recognise each other and
form structures.
The human body has more
than one thousand trillion trillion
molecules (10 to the power
of 27) with around 100,000
different shapes and functions.
Interactions between molecules
enables humans – as well as
bacteria, animals, plants and

other living systems – to move,
sense, reproduce and accomplish
the processes that keep all living
creatures alive.
The key to understanding all
biological processes is recognition.
The way molecules recognise each
other and transfer information has
been likened to the way people
shake hands. When two people
meet they both automatically put
out their right hand. It could also be
a pair of left hands, but no matter
how your hands are orientated you
will never fit a left hand into a right

hand when greeting. Similarly,
molecules can either be ‘right
handed’ or ‘left handed’.
Dr Alessandro De Vita, Reader
in Physics, comments: ‘Mother
Nature has taken billions of years
to evolve molecules capable of
meeting and forming complex

structures with incredible
efficiency. The process is indeed
often like a handshake, but it is
not sufficient that the two hands
be both right or left – they must
also come in contact and close
around each other in a concerted,
symmetrical way.’

Lecture theatre officially opens
Greg Funnell

HR initiative launches
A unique partnership created to

bring together academic experts
on human resource management
(HRM) with key players in the
field from industry and government
has been established by the
Department of Management.
Known as the HRM Learning
Board, it was launched on 12
June at the Maughan Library by
Professor David Guest and Stuart
Woollard (HRM Learning Board
Director) both of the Department.
As King’s has one of the
leading groups of human resource
management researchers in Europe,
| Comment | July 2007

and extensive links with the global
HRM academic community,
the HRM Learning Board will
provide an opportunity for the
dissemination of knowledge and
thinking based on the latest
research in human resource
management conducted in the UK
and around the world.
David Guest, Professor of
Organisational Psychology and
HRM, comments: ‘King’s is
delighted to extend its knowledge
transfer programme into the
HR arena and further develop
important links with industry.’

The Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre was formally opened on 8 May by Mrs Lily
Safra (centre), an Honorary Fellow of King’s, and commemorated with a special
lecture given by Dr Stephen Minger, Director of King’s Stem Cell Biology Laboratory.
This memorial lecture, highlighting frontline advances in research into Parkinson’s
Disease, will be an annual event at the College. The lecture honours the late
Mr Edmond J. Safra, philanthropist and financier, and his widow, Mrs Lily Safra FKC,
who recently made a generous gift to support research being undertaken at the
College into the causes of Parkinson’s Disease. The Principal (left) welcomed Mrs
Safra and thanked her for her tremendous support. Baroness Rawlings, Chairman
of Council, also paid tribute to Mrs Safra’s philanthropic generosity.

Profile

Gillian Bates & Michael Malim
In May Gillian Bates, Professor of Neurogenetics, and
Professor Michael Malim, Head of the Department of
Infectious Diseases, were elected to the Fellowship of
the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science.
Here Comment finds out more about them.
When did you become interested in your subject?
MM: I liked science at school and I really
enjoyed being an undergraduate studying
biochemistry at Bristol but I think it was during
my DPhil in molecular genetics (in yeast) at
Oxford that I became really switched on about
research. It was during this time that research
into human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
really took off and I think reading papers on this
subject inspired me to want to work in the area
of HIV/AIDS molecular pathogenesis.
GB: I first encountered Huntington’s disease
(HD) when I was an undergraduate and
working as a cleaner in a psychiatric hospital
as a summer job. The disease made a profound
impression on me and so I was very happy to be
given the opportunity to work on the cloning
of the HD gene when I joined Hans Lehrach’s
lab at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund as a
postdoctoral fellow in 1987.
Tell us about your career to date.
MM: After gaining my DPhil in 1987 I intended
to go to the States for two years as a postdoctoral
fellow at Duke University. But after enjoying
five years at Duke I joined the faculty at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1992. I remained
there for nine years before coming back to the
UK in 2001 to help establish a new programme
of infection and immunology at King’s.
Whilst in the States my group identified a
human anti-retrovirus gene product which is
a potent suppressor of HIV infection. More
recently, we also discovered the principal
mechanism whereby this protein mediates its
antiviral effect, a process called hypermutation.
Virology as a discipline is under-represented
in the UK. For instance, when you attend major
HIV meetings there are many British speakers
but most of them work in the US. Part of the
attraction of coming back to the UK was to
help ‘beef up’ virology research here. King’s
continues to help me to realise my goal of
developing a leading academic programme
in virology.
My research team use laboratory models to
study the growth and spread of HIV. We’re
particularly interested in the ‘seesaw battle’ that
exists between the infected host and the virus.
And we’re exploring possible ways to manipulate
or influence this to develop new therapeutic
strategies for controlling HIV/AIDS.
The lab comprises a mix of PhD students and

postdoctoral fellows from all over the world.
As well as undertaking my own research I also
particularly enjoy recruiting and mentoring
junior faculty members and helping them with
their careers.
GB: High profile gene cloning projects were
generally extremely competitive. Unusually
for its time, efforts to isolate the HD gene
were being co-ordinated under the umbrella
of the Hereditary Disease Foundation (HDF)
as a collaborative effort between UK and US
research groups which brought complementary
talents to the project. This collaborative
research group isolated the HD gene in
1993 and the mutation was found to be an
abnormally long repeated DNA sequence or
CAG repeat at the beginning of the gene that
encodes the protein dubbed ‘huntingtin’.
I came to the United Medical and Dental
Schools of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals in
1994 to establish my own research group. It was
a wonderful time to initiate my independent
research career as nothing was known about the
pathogenesis of HD and everything had still to be
done. Therefore, with support from the Medical
Research Council and HDF, I set out to generate
a mouse model of HD as a valuable research
tool. We published the first HD mouse model in
1996 and analysis of these mice has been key in
uncovering alterations that occur in HD patients’
brains early in the disease process. They have
become the model most frequently used for the
preclinical assessment of potential therapeutic
compounds. My lab continues to use mouse
models to further understand the molecular basis
of HD and to explore possible therapies.
This will be the 20th year that I have been
involved in research into HD. I have been
fortunate to continue to contribute to the goal
of finding therapies for HD and to do this I have
moved into areas of research that were outside
my expertise. This has been greatly helped by the
HDF, Huntington’s Disease Society of America
and more recently the HighQ Foundation who
have built an HD community of inspiring people
and fostered a collaborative ethos.
How does it feel to be recognised by the Royal Society?
MM: I am very flattered. It is great recognition
for all the people I’ve had the privilege of
working with during my research career.
GB: I am overwhelmed that this research,
which has involved many exceptional people

Greg Funnell

including my mentors, collaborators, postdocs
and students as well as the foundations, has
been recognised. I hope that this will increase
the profile of HD and be an inspiration to young
investigators.
Why should students pursue your subject?
MM: It is a fascinating subject and a fascinating
virus. Viruses are brilliant tools for understanding
basic human biology and HIV is a very
important and interesting pathogen. There are
8,000 people dying every day of this disease
and although this is a pretty bleak picture, a
tremendous amount is being achieved through
education and testing as well as through
research and developing new therapies.
GB: A career in research is always stimulating
and continually presents new challenges, but
the plight of HD families adds an additional
compulsion and urgency to the work as well as
making any advances much more rewarding.

Fact file
Book on my bedside table
MM: Saturday by Ian McEwan. I am also

reading Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix with my son.
GB: Black and Blue by Ian Rankin – I am
currently reading the Rebus books.
Proudest work moment
MM: One of the proudest moments of my

career was when the Department of Infectious
Diseases was officially opened by Archbishop
Desmond Tutu in February 2004.
GB: Making our mouse model available
to the scientific community through the
Jackson Laboratories as soon as was possible
accelerated research into HD. More than 200
papers have been published on this model.

July 2007 | Comment |

International

Australian of the Year talks at King’s
naresh verlander

Professor Tim Flannery, Australian

of the Year, gave a speech at King’s
on climate change on 5 June to
mark World Environment Day.
In his lecture The Weather Makers
– The History and Future Impact
of Climate Change he discussed
what could and should be done to
combat climate change at a time
when the environment has reached
the forefront of public debate in
Australia and the rest of the world.

‘Tim Flannery is
Australia’s David
Attenborough’
In his lecture Professor Flannery
drew on ideas from his new book,
The Weather Makers: Our Changing
Climate and What It Means for Life

From left: Dr Ian Henderson, Lecturer at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies and
organiser of the event, Mrs Frances Adamson, Deputy High Commissioner for Australia,
Professor Tim Flannery and Professor Carl Bridge.

on Earth, arguing that ‘we are all
“weather makers”’ and that the
only choice, both logically and
ethically, is ‘to begin to address
climate change before it is too late’.
Professor Carl Bridge, Head

of the Menzies Centre for
Australian Studies, commented:
‘Tim Flannery is Australia’s
David Attenborough: explorer,
naturalist, palaeontologist,
historian, controversialist,

aftermath in Central Europe was
the subject of a colloquium held at
King’s on 4 June. The event was
organised as part of the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
and King’s strategic alliance.
In the space of 12 months
two important new monographs
shedding fresh light on the
history of Central Europe
| Comment | July 2007

have been published by young
historians – Dr James Bjork and
Dr Chad Bryant – working in
the departments of History at
King’s and UNC. To celebrate
these publications, as well as
the developing partnership
between King’s and UNC, the
two departments organised this
colloquium.
The two authors were joined

by Professor Christopher
Browning, History Department,
UNC, one of the leading
historians of the Holocaust and
commentary was provided by
Professor Richard Overy (Exeter),
a prominent historian of the
Second World War and Dr Jan
Palmowski (King’s), an expert on
German national identity and the
German Democratic Republic.

national conscience, and all round
Renaissance man.’
In January the Australian Prime
Minister John Howard named
Professor Flannery Australian
of the Year 2007 for ‘encouraging
Australians into new ways of
thinking about their environmental
history and future ecological
challenges’.
The award celebrates the
achievement and contribution of
eminent Australians, by profiling
leading citizens who are role
models for the country.
Recent recipients include
Steve Waugh, Patrick Rafter,
Professor Ian Frazer and Cathy
Freeman. Fiona Wood, Australian
of the Year 2005 – is a King’s
alumna having graduated in
medicine from St Thomas’
Hospital Medical School.

Spanish
Ambassador
The Spanish Ambassador,
Don Carlos de Miranda,
inaugurated a major twoday conference entitled New
Perspectives on the Spanish
Transition to Democracy. The
conference was organised by
the Department of Spanish &
Spanish-American Studies, one
of the oldest university Spanish
departments in the world.
The conference, which was
held at the Strand Campus on
18 and 19 May, included 25
speakers – from the UK, Spain,
America and Denmark – and
seven sessions: Politics; Civil
Society; Nationalism; Culture;
International Dimension;
Memory; Collective
Experience and Public
Remembrance.
It was organised by Dr Diego
Muro, Lecturer in European
Studies, and Gregorio Alonso,
Lecturer in Modern Spanish
History & European Studies,
both of the Department of
Spanish & Spanish-American
Studies.

Focus

The Eating Disorders Unit
The Eating Disorders Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley Hospital was founded by Professor Gerald
Russell in the 1970s. In those days the Unit focused exclusively on treating and researching anorexia nervosa, a lifethreatening illness which affects mainly young women around the time of puberty.

T

he well-known ‘Maudsley

Model’ of family therapy for
adolescents with anorexia nervosa was
pioneered at the Unit at a time when elsewhere
strict, and often rather coercive, behavioural
regimes for refeeding predominated. Familybased treatment is now enshrined in the
National Institute for Clinical Excellence
(NICE) guidelines on eating disorders as
the treatment of choice for adolescents with
anorexia nervosa. In 1979, Professor Russell
was the first to describe bulimia nervosa, which
soon became recognised as one of the most
common psychological disorders affecting
young women.

Growth
Over the years the Unit has grown steadily
in terms of its clinical remit, staffing, research
output and public profile. Professor Janet
Treasure now heads the Clinical Unit within the
South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and
Professor Ulrike Schmidt the Section of Eating
Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry. The
Child & Adolescent Eating Disorders Service
is led by Dr Ivan Eisler.
Clinical and academic space for the Unit
is currently across four sites – the Institute of
Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, Guy’s Hospital,
Bethlem Royal Hospital and Denbridge House,
Bromley. The Unit has about 60 clinical and
research staff and a steady stream of visiting
researchers and clinicians from around the
world who spend time in the Unit.

Teaching
The Unit has some eight or 10 PhD students.
Between five and 10 students taking the
doctorate in Clinical Psychology, the MD or
MSc degrees undertake their projects with the
Unit. There are close links with the Institute of
Psychiatry DClin Psych programme and the
Neuroscience & Mental Health Studies MSc
programmes, through Professor Iain Campbell
from the Unit, and through consultant clinical
psychologist Dr Kate Tchanturia, who is the
Women’s Mental Health Module Leader.
Junior and senior researchers meet weekly for
research meetings to listen to outside speakers or
to get a friendly grilling on their own projects at
different stages of development.
The Clinical Unit also runs skills training
courses for clinicians keen to learn about aspects
of assessing or treating eating disorders. It
provides training, consultation and supervision

(nationally and internationally) to service
providers setting up local eating disorder services.

Research
The Unit houses a large portfolio of research
projects aimed at further understanding the
causes of eating disorders and developing
better treatments. Projects include studies on
the genetic, neuropsychological, personal and
environmental risk factors and their interactions
in different eating disorders, and studies using
brain scanning to understand the ways in which
food and other cues are processed in anorexia
nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Several treatment
studies are in progress to evaluate psychological
treatments for people with eating disorders and
their carers, using new technologies.
The Unit has many national and international
research collaborations and is part of a Marie
Curie Research Training Network (INTACT),
funded by the European Union.
The Unit has recently obtained a National
Institute for Health Research five-year applied
research programme grant, Translating
experimental neuroscience into treatment of
anorexia nervosa. The publication of the NICE
guidelines for eating disorders three years
ago highlighted the dearth of knowledge on
how to treat anorexia. ‘We are delighted that
the government is responding to this need by
making funds available for crucial research in
this area,’ comments Professor Schmidt.
‘This programme is unique as it integrates
studies covering anorexia from childhood into

adulthood, across the whole range of severity.
Moreover, it will cover a whole spectrum
of research, from the development of early
detection tools and targeted psychological
treatments, to the evaluation of physical
and hormonal system changes of illness
and recovery. This work will be done in
collaboration with beat, the UK-wide charity
for eating disorders.
‘In five years time we hope to have new
treatments for anorexia that make a lasting and
positive difference to the lives of sufferers and
their families. As well as introducing web-based
early detection and intervention tools, we will
focus on the needs of those with the most severe
form of the illness and on specialist areas such as
mothers with eating disorders and women with
reproductive problems.’

Public understanding
The Unit has a strong commitment to
increasing public understanding of science.
Team members recently participated in an
evening on eating disorders at the European
Dana Alliance for the Brain and a session at the
Cheltenham Science Festival: ‘the Vanishing
Point’. The Unit has also convened an Eating
Disorders Research Network under the auspices
of the UK Mental Health Research Network.
A new book Skills-based Learning for Caring
for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The
New Maudsley Method from Professor Treasure,
is based on research at the Unit. For further
information visit www.eatingresearch.com
July 2007 | Comment |

King’s people

Awards
Queen’s Birthday Honours

Professor David Armstrong

David Armstrong, Professor of

Medicine and Sociology in the
School of Medicine’s Department
of General Practice & Primary
Care, has been awarded a CBE for
services to medical research.
David Armstrong is a medical
sociologist and health services
researcher with a particular interest
in primary care. He is a member
of the Medical Research Council
and Chairs its Health Services and
Public Health Research Board as
well as a number of other MRC

Committees and working groups.
He trained to be a doctor
at Guy’s Medical School, and
following further study and house
jobs, returned as Lecturer of
Sociology as Applied to Medicine
in 1973. He was appointed
as Professor of Medicine and
Sociology in 2006.
Fields Wicker-Miurin, co-founder
and Partner of Leaders’ Quest, and
member of College Council, was
awarded an OBE for services to
international business.
Fields Wicker-Miurin joined
Council in 2002 and is Chair of
the Audit Committee. She has
enjoyed a highly successful career
with large, international businesses.
She was named by Euromoney as
one of the top 50 women in finance
in the world, by Time magazine
as one of 15 people most likely to
influence the future of Europe and
by the World Economic Forum in
1997 as one of 100 Global Leaders
of Tomorrow.

Dietitian honoured
Jane Thomas, Senior Lecturer

in Nutrition & Dietetics, has
been awarded a Fellowship of
the British Dietetic Association
(BDA). The Fellowship is
conferred in recognition of her

Long Service Awards

Academy of Medical Sciences
Neuroscience at the Institute of
Psychiatry, has been elected to
the Fellowship of the Academy of
Medical Sciences in recognition
of his excellence in medical
science.
Head of the Department of
Neuroscience and Director
of the MRC Centre for
Neurodegeneration Research,
established in 2006, Professor
Anderton is one of 40 new
Fellows to be elected this year.
Speaking about this
recognition Professor Anderton
commented: ‘I am very honoured
to be elected a Fellow, especially
in the company of other eminent
colleagues doing crucial work
in cancer, developmental
biology and bioethics, amongst
other fields. This highlights
the Academy’s commitment
to promote advances in
medical science – in my case:
understanding of disease
mechanisms in Alzheimer’s
disease.’

Jane Thomas

On 30 April King’s staff who
have completed 25 and 40
years’ service were recognised
at the annual Long Service
Awards hosted by the Principal,
Professor Rick Trainor, in the

10 | Comment | July 2007

Great Hall. Of the 22 staff with
25 years’ service 15 were able to
attend the event and of the four
with 40 years’ service three (see
above) were present to receive
their awards.

Professor Brian Anderton

Academy fellows are elected
for outstanding contributions
to the advancement of
medical science, for innovative
application of scientific
knowledge and conspicuous
service to healthcare. Professor
Anderton was admitted at a
ceremony in London on 28 June.

dedication, particularly in the field
of education, to the promotion of
the profession and the science and
practice of dietetics.
The award is the highest
honour given by the BDA and was
made at their annual conference
dinner in Belfast City Hall on 20
June. BDA fellowships were first
awarded in 1979 and there have
been 66 recipients since then.
Since she joined King’s in 1979,
Jane Thomas has been involved
in the education of more than
500 student dietitians, setting
high standards and acting as a
professional example as a leader,
role model and mentor. She is only
the third member of staff to receive
the award, other recipients include
Ann Brown in 1979 and Pat Judd
in 1998.

On 3 July Professor William Yule,
Emeritus Professor of Applied
Child Psychology, was presented
with the Aristotle Prize at the Xth
European Congress of Psychology.
The Prize was given to
the European Federation of
Psychologists’ Associations by the
President of the IVth European
Congress of Psychology in 1995
to be awarded to a psychologist
from Europe who has made a
distinguished contribution to
psychology.
The Aristotle Prize Committee
considered Professor Yule a very
worthy recipient. ‘Professor Yule
is internationally recognised as
having made major contributions to
clinical psychology across a broad
range of areas, and much of his
work in the last two decades has a
distinctly European flavour.’
Professor Yule was awarded
the Lifetime Achievement Award
by the International Society for
Traumatic Stress Studies in 2005
and made an Honorary Fellow of
the British Psychological Society
in 2006.

King’s people
Teaching excellence recognised across the College
Dr Jan
Palmowski

Professor Alan
Collins

Dr Alistair
Hunter

greg funnell

patrick barth

The winners of the annual
King’s Awards for Excellence in
Teaching were announced last
month. These awards, now in
their fifth year, provide students
with an opportunity to recognise
teaching staff from each of the
College’s nine Schools of study.
Nominations were put forward
by students and endorsed by
Heads of Department. Schools
can either give the award to one
person or divide it. The winners
were announced at the College
Teaching Committee and one
award of £1,000 will be made
per School.

Allergy & Respiratory Science,
has been awarded the William
Frankland award for outstanding
services to clinical allergy. He
received the award from the British
Society for Allergy and Clinical
Immunology at their recent annual
meeting for his work with trainees
in allergy.

Professor Corrigan is instrumental
in establishing allergy as an
independent medical specialty
and has assembled the curriculum
for adult allergy trainees in the
UK. The award is named after
William Frankland, one of the
‘fathers’ of allergy in the UK,
who did seminal initial work on
allergen characterisation and
immunotherapy. He worked in

KCLSU recognises staff
The KCLSU Awards were held
on 24 May at Tutu’s. This was
an opportunity for KCLSU to
recognise students and staff who
have made a contribution to the
King’s community this year. The

secondment to the Cabinet Office
for two years from September
2007. The official history will
be from the JIC’s origins in 1936
to the end of the Cold War. He
will examine JIC’s organisational
developments, the nature and
composition of intelligence
assessments and how, historically,
the government has used JIC’s
findings. The research will be
based on classified and declassified
archival sources and interviews
with past serving members of the
committee. The history is due to
be published in 2011 to coincide
with the 75th anniversary of the
committee’s founding.
The JIC is part of the Cabinet
Office and responsible for
providing Ministers and senior
officials with co-ordinated
interdepartmental intelligence
assessments on a range of issues
of immediate and long-term
importance to national interests,
primarily in the fields of security,
defence and foreign affairs.

Senior scientific role

Professor Arnie Purushotham

Professor Arnie Purushotham will be

the first director of the Integrated
Cancer Centre. The Centre brings
together Guy’s and St Thomas’
and King’s College Hospital NHS
Foundation Trusts, and the South
East London Cancer Network
(already designated as a Joint
Cancer Centre) with King’s, and
other organisations involved in
the delivery of cancer services
locally. It is central to developing
world-class cancer services to serve
people across South East London
and, for more specialist services,
patients from further afield.
Professor Purushotham,
Professor of Breast Cancer at
King’s and Consultant Surgeon at
Guy’s and St Thomas’, takes up
his new role with immediate effect.

JIC historian
In May Tony Blair approved the
appointment of Dr Michael Goodman,
Lecturer in the Department
of War Studies, as the Official
Historian for the Joint Intelligence
Committee (JIC).
Dr Goodman will be on
12 | Comment | July 2007

delighted to be joining the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society at a
time of great opportunity for the
profession and look forward to
strengthening the Society’s links
with the scientific community.’

Head of Alumni Relations

New Rector
Sir Roy Anderson, chief scientific

adviser to the Ministry of Defence,
and a pioneer in the epidemiology
of infectious diseases, will succeed
Sir Richard Sykes as Rector of
Imperial College in September. Sir
Roy was a lecturer in Zoology at
King’s from 1973-8. Sir Richard is
also a King’s alumnus.
Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner joined King’s in

June as the new Head of Alumni
Relations. Jennifer comes from
the US with 15 years’ experience
in higher education, including
eight in alumni programmes
and development. She has an
undergraduate degree in English
and a master’s degree in nonfiction writing. She will be leading
the Alumni Office to expand
outreach and programming for
the 90,000 King’s alumni around
the world. Contact Jennifer on
ext 3458 or via email
jennifer.garner@kcl.ac.uk

Law and Philosophy Chair
Professor Jayne Lawrence

Jayne Lawrence, Professor of

Biophysical Pharmaceutics, has
recently been appointed as the
new Chief Scientific Advisor to
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society
of Great Britain.
In her new role Professor
Lawrence will provide scientific
advice and expertise to the Society
and its Council and will work to
develop the Society’s portfolio
of science activity. Another key
aspect of the role will be to act
as a media spokeswoman for the
Society on science issues.
Professor Lawrence is now
working with the Society’s
science team in London for twoand-a-half days a week, while
continuing in her current position
at King’s for the rest of the week.
Professor Lawrence says: ‘I am

to give the lectures.
On 13 July Professor Plant
received an honorary doctorate
(DUniv) from the University of
York in recognition of his work
in legal, social and political
philosophy.

Lord Plant, Professor of

Jurisprudence and Head of the
School of Law, has been appointed
to the Vincent Wright Chair in
Law and Philosophy at Sciences
Po in Paris from January to July
2008. He will teach for four hours
a week, give some public lectures
and engage in a collaborative
research project with Dr Patrick
Legales on Neo Liberalism and
the Rule of Law. During his tenure
of the post he will remain as Head
of the Law School at King’s.
In the spring term and for the
first part of the summer term
Professor Plant gave the eight
Bampton Lectures at Oxford
University on the topic of Liberal
Pluralism, Citizenship, Law
and the Sacred. The Bampton
Lectureship was founded in
1780 and Professor Plant was
the first non-ordained person

On 16 May The Rt Hon the Lord
Slynn of Hadley, President of the
Centre of European Law, retired
after 13 years of service.
Following the Advisory Board
meeting Lord Slynn chaired the
32nd Annual Lecture, given by
Thymen Koopmans, former judge
at the European Court of Justice
(1979-90).
Judges, barristers and solicitors
were in attendance. A drinks
reception was held afterwards and
Lord Bingham of Cornhill gave
an address paying tribute to Lord
Slynn’s unstinting yet unintrusive
support of the Centre of European
Law. Lord Bingham will deliver
this year’s Commemoration
Oration.
Lord Slynn talked of the great
affection he holds for the Centre
and King’s and wished them every
success for the future. The Centre
has decided to name the annual
Centre of European Law PhD
studentship after him.

King’s people

Principal’s Circle
On 19 June the Principal
hosted a special dinner at the
Strand Campus, in honour
of the founding members of
his leadership giving club, the
Principal’s Circle. The Principal’s
Circle recognises the generosity
of alumni, staff, former staff
and friends of the College, who
donate £1,000 or more during
an academic year to the Annual
Fund or to the Principal’s
Discretionary Fund.
Since its establishment 15
months ago, 46 members of the
Principal’s Circle have donated
over £105,000 in support of new
academic facilities, scholarships,
extra-curricular opportunities and
welfare initiatives for students.
Their generosity helps students to
realise their potential, both inside
the classroom and beyond.
For additional details
contact Alison Thompson
(alison.3.thompson@kcl.ac.uk).

MP visits Strand

The MP Mark Field with the Principal.

On 14 June the Principal
welcomed the MP Mark Field to the
College. Dr Patricia Reynolds led
a visit to the International Virtual
Dental School at Strand Bridge
House, which has opened since
Mr Field’s last visit to King’s. Mr
Field also visited the Chapel and
the South Range of the Strand
before meeting the President of the
Students’ Union Daryn McCombe
and Vice-Principal Professor Sir
Lawrence Freedman. Mr Field has
been MP for the Cities of London
and Westminster since 2001 and
his constituency includes King’s
Strand Campus.

Obituaries
DR Rod Watson
1947-2007

Dr Rod Watson did a degree in

Chemistry at the University
of Birmingham and then went
into teaching, both in the UK
and Spain. He then chose to do
a PhD studying the impact of
different styles of undergraduate
laboratory work on students’
learning under Professor Lewis
Elton, at the University of Surrey.
This work sparked a lifelong
interest in the role of laboratory
work in the learning of science.
He joined King’s as a Lecturer
in Science Education in 1985
and was promoted to a Senior
Lecturer in 1996. Rod was an
enthusiastic and stimulating man,
always challenging his students
to explore why they thought
what they did and pushing them
onto higher things. Many will
remember him for his wry and
gentle sense of humour.
Rod steadfastly pursued a line
of work looking at how the role of
practical work, and in particular
investigative work, could
be improved in the teaching
of school science. His work
begun, in the late 1980s, with a
project to establish a National
Environmental Database that
could be used in schools to
develop students’ understanding
of the role of evidence in science.
This led, in the early 1990s, to
his appointment as co-director
of a major research project
funded by the then Department
for Education looking at how
practical work could be made

more open-ended and less recipe
like. This was a three-year
project whose outcomes were to
have a major influence in framing
the national curriculum for
science and which led to several
significant publications.
His most well-known work
will be the project shared with
the Association for Science
Education, the science teachers’
professional association, and
King’s that he directed from
1996-2001. This project led
to three books to support the
teaching of practical work in
schools and sold over 12,000
copies. His work has played
a major role in sustaining the
reputation of King’s for its work
in science education.
Dr Watson’s passing will leave
a large hole in the fabric of the
Department of Education &
Professional Studies. His warm,
enthusiastic face was part of the
glue which held our community
together and he will be missed.
Professor Jonathan Osborne, Head
of Department of Education &
Professional Studies

Professor Roderick
Cawson 1921-2007

degree from London University
and later the FRCPath.
In 1962, he became Senior
Lecturer in the Department
of Dental Medicine at Guy’s
Hospital Dental School. In
1966, he was appointed Head
of the new Department of Oral
Medicine and Pathology and not
long afterwards to the University
of London Chair of Oral
Medicine and Pathology that he
held until his retirement in 1986.
On retirement, Rod’s work
accelerated as he achieved
Emeritus status. He continued
to contribute to the UK Salivary
Gland Tumour Panel and
write his texts from the Guy’s
Department of Surgery.
Rod received many awards
and appointments for his
academic achievements. He was
the first to carry out a statistical
survey of oral cancer in England
and Wales, the first to describe
the features of oral tuberculosis
following the introduction of
chemotherapy and to recognise
the malignant potential of
chronic candidiasis.
But, above all, Rod was an
outstandingly gifted author,
producing a litany of extremely
readable textbooks which
became standard undergraduate
and postgraduate reading. He
will live on in these for many
decades to come.
Dentistry owes a lot to Rod’s
wife Diana, who supported
him throughout his work. Rod
was revered by all and sought
out for his many talents and
encyclopaedic knowledge. He
was engaging with an infectious
sense of humour that was always
in good taste.
Michael Gleeson, Professor of
Otolaryngology

Roderick Cawson died on 25

April in King’s College Hospital
where he had qualified 60 years
earlier, first in dentistry and
subsequently in medicine.
After serving in the RAF from
1944-8, Rod was appointed
to a Senior Lectureship in the
Department of Oral Pathology
at King’s. He obtained his MD

DEATH NOTICE
On 16 July 2007, Lyn Pilowsky,
Professor and Head of Section
Neurochemical Imaging and
Psychiatry, passed away. A
full obituary will appear in
September’s Comment.

July 2007 | Comment | 13

Flashback

The King George III Museum
King’s was once home to an extraordinary collection of scientiﬁc curiosities assembled by King George III and
housed in his private astronomical observatory at Kew, built to observe the Transit of Venus in 1769. The Museum
was later donated to the College by Queen Victoria in 1841 and opened by Prince Albert amid much fanfare two
years later. The Museum was located opposite the Council Room at the Strand Campus.
CollEGE arCHiVEs

T

HE KING WAS FASCINATED

by the rapid advances in natural
philosophy and the new science
of electricity that took place during his
reign. In 1761, he commissioned one
of the most accomplished instrumentmakers of his day, George Adams, to
produce an array of new precision devices
to survey the land and explore the night
skies, to measure mechanical force
and probe the mysteries of electricity
and magnetism. The collection was
augmented by equipment belonging to
Stephen Demainbray, Superintendent
of the Kew observatory and one of the
King’s tutors who supplemented his income
by giving public lectures on the latest science
using his own demonstration apparatus.

Annals of computing

14 | Comment | July 2007

The Museum also occupies a distinguished
position in the annals of computing. Before
its opening, King’s had witnessed the
demonstration of a new calculating machine
designed by the self-taught bookseller, Thomas
Fowler. The trial of Fowler’s calculator took
place in front of an audience that included
the polymath Charles Babbage, a celebrated
mathematician regarded by some as the
father of computing.
Like Fowler, Babbage sought to
build a machine that might automate
mathematical calculations and his
reputation rests on designs for two types
of calculating machine – the difference
engine and the analytical engine, the
latter equipped with punch-cards and
arguably the world’s first programmable
computer. Babbage’s project quickly ran
into difficulties when government funding
was stopped. Protected by a glass display
case, it was this prototype of the unfinished
Difference Engine No1 that eventually
took pride of place in the centre of the
George III Museum where it remained
until its transfer to the Science Museum.
CollEGE arCHiVEs

exquisite items
The collection eventually comprised
hundreds of exquisite items manufactured
by the leading instrument-makers of the
day – including orreries and equatorials,
microscopes, heliometers, telescopes, springs
and pendulums, electrostatic devices and
steam engines, even the extraordinarysounding ‘Dr Nooth’s apparatus for
preparing medicinal waters’, and the King’s
personal soda fountain.
The government ceased funding the
observatory in 1841 and its contents were
earmarked for dispersal. However, in August
1841, the electrical and mechanical collections
were presented to the College for the purposes
of maintaining ‘a general course of experimental
philosophy’. It was not unusual at this time
for universities to keep their own collections
of experimental apparatus and geological
and anatomical specimens which were used
as teaching aids. The exceptional quality of
the George III Museum’s contents, however,
cemented the College’s reputation as an
important new centre of learning and research
in physics and chemistry, also reflected in the
appointment of the celebrated John Daniell
and Sir Charles Wheatstone to the chairs of
Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy.
Mindful of its importance, and taken aback
by its richness, the College Council promptly
cleared one of its libraries to make room for
the collection – an impressive double-height
galleried space that eventually was incorporated
into the Physics Department. It was here that

test Benjamin Franklin’s theory that lightning
conductors worked more effectively with
pointed tips.

The King George iii Museum was housed at King’s from
1841-1927.

the Prince Consort opened the Museum in
June 1843. The proposed highlight of his tour
was a demonstration of Wheatstone’s early
telegraphic apparatus situated on the river
terrace. It comprised a battery-generated
spark that would trigger the remote firing of
cannon on top of the Lambeth shot tower
situated on the south bank of the river. Rather
embarrassingly the experiment failed when the
cannon fizzled out!
One of the most extraordinary pieces of
demonstration equipment in the new museum
was Adams’ ‘philosophical table’, built in 1761
and a laboratory bench designed to conduct
experiments into magnetism and mechanics.
Other highlights included the inclined horseway, used to test the reliability of new carriage
wheels prior to manufacture. The ‘electric egg’,
first demonstrated in 1748, produced a vivid
lightshow when electricity was discharged
across it. Other electrical devices included
Gravesande’s Whirling Globe and an example
of James Lind’s Thunder House, designed to

An inspiration
When Sir Charles Wheatstone died in 1875,
he bequeathed his own extensive collection
of scientific apparatus to the College including
his prototype telegraph machines which
helped transform global communications,
and his stereoscope, complete with slides
commissioned from pioneering photographers
including Roger Fenton. It also boasted his
concertina, the musical instrument which
he invented in 1844. Many of these items
remain at King’s under the care of the
College Archives.
Wheatstone’s gift reinforced the Museum’s
reputation as a place of study, recreation and
inspiration for generations of students and
public visitors. By the 1920s, however, it
became clear that an overcrowded College
needed the valuable space that it occupied. It
was loaned to the Science Museum in 1927,
where it remains to this day in its own gallery.
Geoff Browell, Archives

Around the College

Speed networking

Alumni return to King’s
alex bevis

This year’s Alumni Weekend

Academics speed network in earnest.

On 15 May 36 academics, including

Professor Keith Hoggart (VicePrincipal, Arts & Sciences), from
across the College’s schools and
campuses took part in a ‘speed
networking for research’ event
in the Council Room at the
Strand Campus. The aim was to
foster collegiality and encourage
possible collaboration between
departments. This was the first
event of its kind to be held at
King’s and was organised by the
Public Relations Department.
The session began with
a sandwich lunch and the
networking then started in earnest.
Six rounds of speed networking

followed. Each round lasted just
five minutes so participants had
to be concise with their questions
and answers which focused on
their research collaborations and
common ground.
‘This type of event has been
well received at several other
Russell Group universities and we
are keen to make a success
of it here at King’s,’ says Chris
Coe, Director of Communications.
‘Participants found the session
useful and fun and many intend to
follow up connections they made.
We aim to build on this success
and organise further sessions.’
Email pr@kcl.ac.uk for details.

(8-10 June) saw more than 600
alumni return to the College.
This was the fourth of the annual
reunion weekends which provide
a range of social and academic
events for former students and
staff of all ages and disciplines.
Highlights included a Friday
night concert by the King’s
College London Symphony
Orchestra in the magnificent
surroundings of Middle Temple
Hall. Alumni had the chance to
take a tour of the newly-renovated
Strand Campus and members
of King’s academic staff gave a
number of thought-provoking
talks. Dr Peter Neumann,
Director of the Centre for Defence
Studies, spoke on terrorism, in
a lecture entitled 7/7: What we
know now that we didn’t know
then, while alumni were able to

take part in a debate in the Royal
Courts of Justice on excessive
use of imprisonment, following
a talk by Rob Allen, Director of
the International Centre for
Prison Studies.
Alumni were also invited to
take part in the official re-opening
of an area of the Royal Festival
Hall, following the multi-million
pound refurbishment of the
Southbank Centre. Donald
Howle and Geoffrey Gardner,
who graduated from King’s in
1951 (the year the Royal Festival
Hall opened), reminisced about
the Southbank and Royal Festival
Hall. The ceremony, which was
documented by a film crew,
was then concluded by Steven
Rhodes, Chairman of the King’s
College London Association,
declaring the refurbished area
officially open.

Alumni re-open an area of the Royal Festival Hall as part of the Alumni Weekend.

News in brief
Cancer therapy

New Chief Executive

King’s, Cancer Research
Technology and Innate Pharma
S.A. (Lyon) have entered into
a Research and Intellectual
Property Agreement based on
the work of Dr Sandra Diebold
of the Division of Immunology,
Infection & Inflammatory
Disease. Dr Diebold will pursue
a research programme which
will further the development of
compounds for cancer therapy.
The agreement, put in place
by King’s Business, includes a
licence to Innate Pharma for
intellectual property generated
during the project.

Ron Kerr will take up the
position of Chief Executive
at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust with effect
from 1 October 2007. He has a
wide-ranging NHS career and
is currently the Chief Executive
of United Bristol Healthcare
NHS Trust. Sir Jonathan
Michael stepped down at the
end of April after six and a half
years in the role. Director of
Strategy and Workforce,
Tim Higginson, is the Acting
Chief Executive and will
continue in this role until the
end of September.

Simulation for education
While the G8 leaders discussed

development issues in Berlin 36
15-year-olds spent the day in
Cheltenham creating an integrated
African Health Strategy.
Simulation experts from
Simulstrat, a King’s spin-out
company, set the children, and
one team of adults, the task of
dealing with the burden of AIDS,
TB, malaria, urban migration,
increasing mental health issues,
and social development between
2007-24. Gifted and talented
pupils from across Gloucestershire
were invited to take part. The
event was held at Cheltenham

Ladies College as part of the
Cheltenham Science Festival.
External observers from the
British Council and Global Forum
for Health see potential in strategic
simulation as an educational tool.
Simulstrat CEO Ken Charman
comments: ‘By participating in
a simulation these children have
learnt more about an immensely
complex subject than they
would have done in weeks by
any other educational medium.
Their understanding has moved
on from melodramatic media
imagery. They are informed and
motivated.’
July 2007 | Comment | 15

Around the College

Second Life grant
The King’s Visualisation Labs

(KVL) in the Centre for
Computing in the Humanities have
won a prestigious contract to create
a new and innovative teaching and
learning environment in Second
Life for higher education.
Second Life is an Internet-based
virtual world where more than six
million users (or ‘Residents’) can
interact with each other through
avatars, providing an advanced
level of social networking.
Residents can explore, meet other
Residents, socialise, participate
in individual and group activities,
and create and trade items and
services from one another.
This project, funded by the
Eduserve Foundation and
undertaken in collaboration with
four strategic partners, will build
3D models and artefacts of cultural
and historical importance in
Second Life.
‘Real-time navigation will

be combined for the first time
with high graphical quality for
these types of models. The 3D
models will be supplemented by
existing and new interpretative
content and a spectrum of original
interactive tools, scenarios and
automated tutorials, incorporating
manipulable and customisable
actors, props, sound effects,
lighting and scenic technologies,
streaming video and scripts
enabling individual and group
movement and choreography,’
explains Professor Richard
Beecham, KVL Director.
‘Second Life is very much
the zeitgeist at the moment,’
comments Simon Tanner,
Director, King’s Digital
Consultancy Services. ‘This
project marks a significant advance
in both the sophistication and scale
of deployments of shared virtual
environments in higher education,
nationally and internationally.’

Rough guide to the King’s brand
In this edition of Comment,
members of King’s staff should
find enclosed a copy of the
Rough guide to using the King’s
brand. This new guide offers
information about the College’s
corporate visual identity,
editorial style, and how to

obtain brand resources like
the logo, fonts, imagery and
templates. It will be helpful for
anyone preparing materials for
an external audience, and is
aimed at achieving a greater
consistency in presentation
across the College.

Photograph 51 performed
fabrizio esposito

The ‘Will to Survive’
Greg Funnell

Beverley Bogle (left) of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery,
and member of the Januka Quadrille Dance Group, organised and took part
in an evening of dance, music and talks in the Great Hall on 11 May to mark
the bicentenary of the Abolition of Slavery Act (1807). The Will to Survive: the
transatlantic slave trade told the story of the slave trade and the slaves’ resilience,
determination and will to survive through music and dance.

Free limited edition files
Greg Funnell

The Public Relations Department

has a supply of limited edition
magazine files in which you
can archive your back issues of
Comment. The files were designed
by the Corporate Design Unit and
are available for staff on a firstcome, first-served basis. Please
email pr@kcl.ac.uk
16 | Comment | July 2007

Elena Pugliese, who visited King’s
in 2003 for her research, was
performed at the University of
Turin in June as part of the XII
Festival delle Colline Torinesi. The
play focuses on the role of King’s
in the elucidation of the structure
of DNA and was performed at the
Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici
which has been part of the
university’s Faculty of Medicine
since the end of the ninth century.
Dr Carla Molteni, Reader in
Physics, watched the play and
enjoyed it. ‘Everybody in the
audience was made to wear a

white lab coat so to symbolically
be a researcher and the play was
performed in an old woodenstalled lecture theatre meant to
be King’s. There was a good
description of the ambition to
carry out research in a prestigious
university but also the difficulties
and the realities of life as a
scientist. Overall it was a play
about the idea of research.’
Photograph 51 is the name given
to an X-ray diffraction image of
DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin
in 1952 that was critical evidence
in identifying the double-helix
structure of the DNA molecule.

Research

Midwives’ assistants

Crohn’s breakthrough
ism/science photo library

A study from King’s has found

that support workers in maternity
services make a key contribution
to the care of women and babies
but a lack of standardisation
in training and role could
compromise standards of care.
Researchers from the School
of Nursing & Midwifery and the
Social Care Work Research Unit
at King’s conducted a survey,
commissioned by the Department
of Health, of managers in a
number of NHS Trusts providing
maternity care in England.
Managers were enthusiastic
about the contribution of support

workers, reporting that they freed
up midwives to spend more time
with women and babies. Their
roles include giving breastfeeding
advice, providing outreach
services to vulnerable women,
and running antenatal and
postnatal groups.
However, a number of Trusts
were converting midwife to
support worker posts and some
support workers were doing tasks
that require specialist midwifery
knowledge. Professor Jane
Sandall, who led the research,
said: ‘There is a danger that
support workers may be called
upon to substitute care provided
by midwives, without sufficient
investment in their training
or development. This is a less
desirable situation which needs
careful management at a local
level to ensure public safety.’
The report recommends the
setting up of a national framework
for training and competencies,
with a need to identify skills and
tasks that can and cannot be
delegated to a support worker.

Police investigation
professor Mike Hough and Tiggey

May from the Institute for
Criminal Policy Research have
published two reports examining
the handling of low-level
complaints against the police. The
types of complaint suitable for local
resolution include allegations of
incivility, impoliteness, intolerance
and minor assaults.
Local Resolution (LR) involves
minor complaints being resolved
at a local level rather than by
outside police forces or the
Independent Police Complaints
Commission (IPCC). LR gives
police officers the opportunity to
explain and justify their actions
and apologise if appropriate. It also
allows complainants the chance
to air their grievances directly
to the police. In 2005-6, 46 per
cent of allegations of wrong doing
recorded were locally resolved.
Professor Hough commented:
‘We found that few complainants
knew anything about the LR

Light micrograph of a section through the colon epithelium of a patient with Crohn’s disease.

A study by scientists from King’s

and Addenbrooke’s Hospital,
Cambridge has found a new gene
– IRGM – which could predispose
people to Crohn’s disease and it
has linked Crohn’s with the gene
PTPN2 which is also found in type
1 diabetes. It also confirmed the
importance of the process known
as autophagy (the clearing of
unwanted material in cells) in the
development of the disease.
The research is part of the
largest genetics project ever
undertaken, the Wellcome Trust
Case Control Consortium. This
£9 million collaboration of 25
leading scientists across the UK
has analysed thousands of DNA
samples looking for genetic
signposts for tuberculosis, coronary
heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid

arthritis, Crohn’s disease, bipolar
disorder and hypertension. The
findings are published in Nature
and Nature Genetics.
Christopher Mathew, Professor
of Molecular Genetics at King’s,
who co-led the Crohn’s study,
says: ‘Crohn’s is a complex genetic
disease and now we can explore
this whole clutch of new genes
to answer questions such as what
effect they have on the course and
severity of disease and possibly on
drug response in disease sufferers.
In the longer term, these genes will
also be targets for the development
of new treatments.’
Crohn’s disease is a common
form of chronic inflammatory
bowel disease, affecting between
30,000 and 60,000 people in the
UK.

Cardiovascular study
process before complaining.
Complainants were not satisfied
with the process because it often
failed to deliver an apology. Also,
officers felt the process was biased
towards complainants and a greater
number of officers were dissatisfied
with the result than were satisfied.’
The research concluded
that LR has the potential for
dealing effectively with low level
complaints, but is not always
being used to its full potential.
Complainants should be better
informed about the process and
the options available to them. In
addition, officers require better
training about the LR process.

Scientists from King’s have
shown that a protein called betaactin has a crucial regulatory
effect on nitric oxide production
by blood platelets. Nitric oxide
is a gaseous molecule produced
within blood vessels which
is essential in maintaining a
healthy cardiovascular system.
It has many actions, including
dilating blood vessels, slowing
the hardening of arteries and
preventing blood platelets from
becoming over-active and
forming clots.
This study, which was
published in May in the journal
PNAS (the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences)
found that beta-actin, which
forms part of the ‘scaffolding’

within cells, modulates two other
proteins (heat shock protein-90
and nitric oxide synthase-3),
which in turn regulates the
amount of nitric oxide generated
by platelets.
Lead investigator, Dr Albert
Ferro, Senior Lecturer in the
Cardiovascular Division, says:
‘It is incredibly important for our
understanding of cardiovascular
disease to identify what normally
regulates the synthesis of
nitric oxide. Our research not
only advances this knowledge
considerably but it also identifies
a potential novel drug target for
therapies to increase platelet
nitric oxide production, which
could be useful in the treatment,
or prevention of heart disease.’

July 2007 | Comment | 17

Media watch

Maternity study

Recycling

Six Day War

Football focus

Jane Sandall, Professor of

The concept of recycling
was examined on Radio
5’s Drivetime. Tony Thorne,
language consultant, explained
that most, if not all, languages
had this word, but that it may
mean slightly different things
in different cultures.

A CNN programme to mark
the 40th anniversary of the
1967 Six Day War featured
an interview with Dr Ahron
Bregman, Department of
War Studies. Dr Bregman
also talked about the 2006
Lebanon war between Israel
and Hezbollah.

As Middlesbrough joined
the fight for a legal challenge
against West Ham United’s
Premiership survival, Jonathan
Taylor, Director of Studies in
Sports Law, spoke to BBC
Radio London about the legal
obstacles facing the ‘gang of
five’.

Hidden victims

Arabic uptake

Prisoners’ families are
hidden innocent victims
who experience significant
impoverishment according to
new research from the Centre
for Crime and Justice Studies
and the Institute of Psychiatry.
Dr Roger Grimshaw, Research
Director, was interviewed on
Radio 4’s Today programme
about the report.

Dr Mashail Ali, Internal

Flexible learning

Iraq visit

In a government-funded
experiment, pupils in Plymouth,
Devon, can start formal lessons
at 07.45 or 11.00 instead of
09.00. Dr Bethan Marshall,
Senior Lecturer in English
Education in the Department
of Education & Professional
Studies, debated the advantages
and disadvantages of the fourweek trial on Radio 5 Live.

Dr John Gearson, Reader in

Born again

Dr Sergio Catignani, Lecturer
in the Department of War
Studies, spoke about the
current conflict in Lebanon
between Lebanese forces and
the Fatah al-Islam group in the
Nahr el-Bared refugee camp
and the effect that the conflict
might have on Lebanese
domestic security.

Midwifery and Women’s
Health, was interviewed on
Sky News, BBC News 24,
Radio 4’s Today programme,
BBC Five Live and BBC
Radio Kent. Her research into
maternity staffing was also
reported on GMTV and BBC1
Breakfast News.

Security challenges
Following the penetration
of a Challenger 2 tank by a
roadside bomb in Iraq, Michael
Clarke, Professor of Defence
Studies, was interviewed
on BBC News, BBC1 Ten
O’Clock News, BBC Radio
Newcastle and BBC Radio
Nottingham. Professor Clarke
also spoke to Sky News about
recent developments in Iraq.

Mental illness
A BBC2 Newsnight report
examining the accusations of
institutional racism levelled at
the Mental Health Services
included an interview with
Robin Murray, Professor of
Psychiatry.

Alcohol advice
Following revised advice from
the Department of Health
stating women pregnant
or trying for a baby should
avoid alcohol completely,
Andrew Shennan, Professor of
Obstetrics, was interviewed on
Sky News, Channel 5 News
and BBC Southern Counties
Radio.

Hot topic
Fiona Russell, PhD student in

the Cardiovascular Division,
talked about chillis on BBC1’s
Ever wondered about…? She
explained the physiological
effects of capsaicin, the active
‘hot’ ingredient in chillis.

18 | Comment | July 2007

RAE
The latest Research Assessment
Exercise was discussed on
Radio 4’s The Learning Curve.
David Papineau, Professor
of Philosophy of Science,
explained the process.

Gladiators
Charlotte Roueché, Professor

of Classical and Byzantine
Greek and Head of Byzantine
& Modern Greek Studies,
was interviewed on BBC2’s
Timewatch about inscriptions
of gladiators in Ancient
Ephesus.

Global terrorism
Dr Peter Neumann, Director

of the Centre for Defence
Studies, spoke about the
terror trials and MI5 on ITV
London Tonight, Fox and Sky
News. Dr Neumann was also
interviewed about al-Qaeda
and Pakistan on the BBC1 Ten
O’Clock News and discussed the
end of the ETA ceasefire on
Radio 4’s PM programme.

Big Brother

The Dean of King’s College
London, The Revd Dr Richard
Burridge, explored the issues
of ‘born again’ Christianity
on the BBC World Service
programme Heart and Soul.

Dr Richard Howells, Reader

in Cultural and Creative
Industries, appeared on Sky
News discussing Big Brother
and reality television. He
argued that in addition to
having lost its novelty some
time ago, the public were also
coming increasingly to realise
that as reality television,
Channel 4’s Big Brother was
becoming decreasingly real.

Reservist health

Programme Director at the
Modern Language Centre,
taught presenter Jumoke
Fashola a few words of Arabic.
Dr Ali also discussed the
reasons for an increase in
Arabic uptake and difficulties
of learning the language on
BBC London Radio’s The
Late Show.

Terrorism Studies, discussed
Tony Blair’s last visit to Iraq
as Prime Minister on BBC
News 24. Dr Gearson was
interviewed on the BBC World
Service about the UN Security
Council considering climate
change as a security issue.

Lebanon conflict

Simon Wessely, Professor of

Epidemiological and Liaison
Psychiatry, one of the authors
of a King’s Centre for Military
Health Research study into the
health of reservists, outlined
the findings for Radio 4’s PM
programme.

See www.kcl.ac.uk/headlines
for the latest media coverage
or on Campus noticeboards.
Comment is keen to know
of any staff featured in the
media, call ext 3202 or email
pr@kcl.ac.uk

Student news

KCLSU Awards

Student stars in Kingdom with Stephen Fry

Greg Funnell

The Darts Society clinches the Society of
the Year award.

King’s College London Students’

Union (KCLSU) celebrated the
contribution students had made
throughout the year in the KCLSU
Annual Awards Ceremony on 24
May. Students and their guests
attended the ceremony where the
Principal, Professor Rick Trainor,
and the Chairman of Council,
Baroness Rawlings, addressed
the award winners, commending
their achievements.
Awards presented included:
Commendations, Half-Laurels,
Laurels and Honorary Life
Memberships. Students received
the majority of the awards, but
College staff (see page 11) and
KCLSU external partners were
also praised for the time and effort
contributed to enhancing the
student experience.

Volunteers award
King’s College London Students’

Union (KCLSU) has become only
the second students’ union in the
country to achieve the Investing
in Volunteers Quality Standard,
recognising the excellent work
they do with volunteers. KCLSU
was assessed against a range of
best practice standards and has
shown to excel in all aspects of
working with its volunteers.
KCLSU volunteers range
from those leading projects in
the local area and beyond, to
those representing others through
Student Council. Others include

ITV

Hannah Field, a student on the
MA in Text and Performance
Studies, recently appeared in an
episode of Kingdom, Stephen
Fry’s latest television drama
series for ITV.
The action revolves around
country solicitor Peter Kingdom,
whose compassion and humility
has won him huge respect in the
picture postcard town of Market
Shipborough. In episode four,
Hannah played bright student
Laura, who is expected to go
to Cambridge, but then
deliberately sabotages her
interview for family reasons.
Alerted by her agent to the
role, Hannah was snapped up for
the part within a couple of days.
On working with Stephen
Fry, she comments: ‘He’s been
my hero for years so I was very
nervous before I arrived. The
first scene I shot was just Richard
Wilson, Stephen and me in a
Cambridge quad – it doesn’t
get much more intimidating
than that!
‘Stephen was so friendly, he
gave me a big hug at the end of
that first day. He also helped me
with the crossword – he really is
as clever as he appears on QI!’

leaders of campaigns, and the
leaders of KCLSU’s 150 clubs
and societies.
KCLSU has invested more
than two years working to achieve
the Investing in Volunteers
accreditation from Volunteering
England.

Student shortlisted
Gbolahan Williams, a final-year

Computer Science student, has
been shortlisted for ‘The Student
Innovator Award’ organised by
The Engineer magazine for his
final year computer science project
called ‘iMAG’.
As part of a project outsourced
to King’s from The Financial
Times, Gbolahan has developed
a system creating an application
that could form the basis of a
future ‘interactive magazine’ – one
that is digitally legible and able to

Roles in school plays and the
drama society at the University of
Kent, led to a part at the National
Theatre in a play called The Menu
by Anthony Neilson. Just recently
Hannah has been filming an
episode of the BBC drama Doctors.
Talking about her MA,
Hannah says: ‘The course
includes work on different
disciplines within the theatrical
framework, such as playwriting,
acting, design and direction, as
well as the more traditional essay
writing on play texts and theatre

respond digitally to analogue input
from a specially-enabled pen. This
allows a reader to receive certain
digital services from a PC simply
by interacting with the magazine
via annotations made on it via the
pen, which is connected to the PC
over a Bluetooth wireless link.
It was jointly supervised by The
Work Interaction and Technology
Group in the Departments of
Management and of Computer
Science. The winner will be
announced at the final awards
ceremony which will take place on
21 September.

Bill Rammell
speaks at King’s
Bill Rammell, Minister of State

for Lifelong Learning, Further
and Higher Education, gave the
keynote speech at a conference
on Erasmus & Graduate

itself which is very appealing. I
think practical experience can
add a deeper and more complex
understanding to academic
writing. The opportunity to do
voice and movement training
every week is very useful
professionally.’
Hannah recently performed
a rehearsed reading at the King’s
Head under the direction of
another member of the course,
Georgina Guy. ‘It’s great that the
course brings students together
like that,’ she notes.
naresh verlander

Employability: the Value of an
International Dimension on 21
June held in the Franklin-Wilkins
Building at King’s. He is pictured
here (right) with Professor Keith
Hoggart, Vice-Principal (Arts &
Sciences) and King’s Portuguese
& Brazilian Studies student
Jennifer Morais who took part
in the Erasmus scheme. King’s
maintains student exchange links
with more than 60 universities
across Europe. Bill Rammell was
General Manager of KCLSU from
1989-94.
July 2007 | Comment | 19

Books
Three favourite...
places for a summertime
drink near waterloo Campus
As recommended by Rachael
Corver, Development
Communications Manager
studio six, Gabriel’s wharf

The biopolitics of the war
on terror

Tulipmania

Dr Livingstone, I presume?

Dr anne Goldgar, History
Department

Dr Clare Pettitt, Department of
English

The War on Terror is represented
as a conflict between regimes
tasked with achieving security
for human life against an enemy
dedicated to destroying the social
and political conditions necessary
for that security.
An enemy motivated against
the interests of common humanity,
and which in being so driven, is
ready to resort to subhuman tactics,
and which therefore requires,
paradoxically, a less than human
response in defence of the integrity
of human life.
The biopolitics of the war
on terror critiques such claims
that liberal regimes exist for the
security of human life, and that
the terrorists now targeting liberal
societies are themselves devoid of
human causes and aspirations.
It demonstrates why this is not
a war in defence of the integrity
of human life, but a war over the
political constitution of life in
which the limitations of liberal
accounts of humanity are being
tested, if not rejected outright.
Any resolution of this conflict,
as argued in this book in depth,
requires moving beyond the limits
of existing understandings of what
constitutes human life and its
political potentialities.

In the 1630s the Netherlands
was gripped by tulipmania, a
speculative fever unprecedented
in scale and, as popular history
would have it, folly. The story goes
that otherwise sensible merchants,
nobles and artisans spent all they
had on tulip bulbs.
However Dr Goldgar reveals in
Tulipmania that it wasn’t like that
and these stories aren’t true. She
lays waste to the legends, revealing
that while the 1630s did see a
speculative bubble in tulip prices,
neither the height of the bubble
nor its bursting were anywhere
near as dramatic as we have been
led to believe.
Dr Goldgar shows the far more
interesting reality: the ways in
which tulipmania reflected deep
anxieties about the transformation
of Dutch society in the Golden
Age.
She shows how Dutch citizens
became enchanted by the
combination of art and science
that made up a tulip bulb, and
how experts in tulips appeared in
communities of merchants and
craftsmen. She also illustrates how
the plague, concerns of capitalism,
and the loss of trust among
individuals in a rapidly changing
society combined to create the
cultural crisis that was tulipmania.

Dr Livingstone, I presume? is a fresh
and original take on a very old
story that of the meeting between
Stanley and Livingstone in Ujiji in
Africa in 1871.
Dr Pettitt realised that this
handshake between a pretend
American and a Scottish
‘Englishman’ had a vital
contemporary resonance in the
wake of the Civil War which had
created so much ill feeling between
America and Britain. Dr Pettitt
is also the first to suggest that
the meeting was the first global
media ‘event’ due to the recent
installation of the transatlantic
cable which meant the story could
be reported simultaneously on
both sides of the Atlantic.
The book also contains the
only discussion available of the
visit that three of Livingstone’s
black African servants made
to Britain in 1874, turning up
hitherto unexamined evidence
of their presence in this
country and their experience
of western industrialisation and
modernisation.
The book is reaching an
audience well beyond Dr Pettitt’s
own academic discipline and has
received a very positive reception
from academic historians and
Africanists.

Manchester university Press

university of Chicago Press

Profile Books

Dr julian reid, lecturer in
international relations

If it’s hot outside head down to
Gabriel’s Wharf, a Thameside
‘village’ of boutique shops and
restaurants situated between
the Oxo Tower and the LWT
studios. Studio Six – more
log cabin than traditional pub
– offers plenty of outdoor seating
and a good range of beers in a
quiet corner. If the sun is shining
what more do you need?
BfI bar, southbank

This new bar and restaurant
at the British Film Institute
(formerly known as the NFT)
has huge windows making it
light and airy and a great place
for watching the crowds on
the Southbank buzzing about.
Comfy armchairs, free wi-fi and
the friendliest service in SE1
create a relaxing atmosphere.
Try their superb ‘pint of hot
sausage rolls’ bar snack.
Meson don felipe, The Cut

A Waterloo institution, this
family-owned tapas bar is
always packed. Perfect before
a trip to the Old or Young Vic:
the service is speedy, the tapas
is tasty and the all Spanish wine
list excellent (the family own
their own vineyard). Every
night a flamenco guitarist
plays on surely the tiniest stage
in London and the whole
experience is so authentic you
can really feel that you are in
Valencia for a few hours – even
if it is raining outside.
Let us know your three favourite
things related to a King’s
Campus and they could provide
colleagues with useful tips.
Email julie.munk@kcl.ac.uk

Comment is the College’s regular newsletter, edited by the Public Relations Department and designed by the Corporate Design Unit |
Comment is printed on paper produced with 80 per cent recovered fibre | Articles are welcomed from all members of the College, but
please note that the Editor reserves the right to amend articles | Copy for the next issue can be sent to Julie Munk, Public Relations
Department (ext 3075), James Clerk Maxwell Building, Waterloo Campus, or emailed to julie.munk@kcl.ac.uk by 22 August.
20 | Comment | July 2007